


Is It Too Late Now To Say Sorry

by Bat_Crap_Crazy



Category: Big Brother RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 01:12:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18458408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bat_Crap_Crazy/pseuds/Bat_Crap_Crazy





	Is It Too Late Now To Say Sorry

            As he walked past, Zach placed an apple on Frankie’s desk. Frankie looked at it with a frown of confusion. He picked it up and took it and placed it on Zach’s desk.

            “I’m not the teacher. Why did you put this on my desk?” he asked.

            Zach shrugged, “In second grade, we were both at Troy Sullivan’s Halloween party and you were bobbing for apples. I bumped into you and made you lose yours. I wanted to replace it.”

            “Ten years later???!!!” Frankie scoffed.

            Zach looked down at his desk and grinned, a blush rapidly appeared on his cheeks. “Better late than never, right?”

            Frankie shook his head, “Sorry but I have seen every Disney movie ever made, hundreds of times. I am not taking your poisoned apple.”

            Zach jerked his head up and his eyes met Frankie’s. The blush faded quickly from his cheeks, taking along all the rest of the color, until his face became chalky white. “It’s not a poisoned apple! I wouldn’t do that! There’s nothing wrong with it, I swear!”

            “Yeah, well…thanks, but no thanks. You can keep it,” Frankie said, with a toss of his head, and he returned to his seat at the front of the class.

            A few hours later, as Frankie was on his way to the cafeteria for lunch, he stopped by his locker to exchange the books from his morning classes for the books for his afternoon classes. When he got his locker door open, an envelope fell out and landed at his feet. He bent over and picked it up. He stood staring at it for a few moments. By its small size, Frankie guessed that someone had pushed it through the vent slits in the locker door. There was no writing on the outside of the envelope and it felt a bit heavier than one would assume it would.

            He opened it up and found a gift card with a value of ten dollars taped to the bottom of a note. He frowned in confusion as he read it:

            “I ripped a book of yours in sixth grade. I don’t remember the title of the book, so I can’t replace it. Here is a gift card. I hope it is enough to buy another one.”

            It was signed “Zach Rance”.

            Frankie shook his head. He vaguely recalled the incident. He had been reading a battered copy of “ _Of Mice and Men_ ” that he had bought for fifty cents (or maybe it was a quarter?) from the yearly book sale of the local library. It was at recess and Zach had run over and snatched it from his hands, where he had been reading it while sitting under a tree. When Zach grabbed it, a page had ripped a bit from Frankie’s grasp upon the book.

            “Hey! You ripped my book, you big oaf!” Frankie had screamed at him.

            “You need to get your nose out of that book and come play ball with us! We’re a man short,” Zach demanded.

            “Well, that’s not _my_ problem!” Frankie retorted, retrieving his book from Zach’s hand, before marching back to his place beneath the tree, “Have somebody sit out!”

            Frankie looked back at the gift card in his hand and gave a puzzled frowned. Ten dollars for a rip on a page of a battered paperback book from six years ago? It was insane.

            He shook his head and then pulled out his wallet and placed the gift card inside. There was no way he was going to accept it, but he wouldn’t be able to return it until the first period class the next day. It was the only class they shared. He searched his memory quickly and couldn’t remember if he had ever seen Zach in the hallways during other times of the day. He gave a small shrug. Frankie would keep his eyes peeled and if he saw Zach sooner he would return it then. He placed the note in his backpack.

            By the time he made it to the cafeteria, he saw that his friends were already at the register. They waved and Paul called, “We’ll save you a seat!”

            Frankie nodded and picked up a tray and headed down the food line. After he made his selections, he hurried over to the register with the shortest line. When it was his turn, he fished out his wallet and withdrew his lunch card and presented it to the cashier.

            She scanned the card and the register emitted an odd beep. She shook her head as she handed Frankie back his card. “No charge today and you have a credit balance for tomorrow’s lunch, too.”

            “What? How can that be?” Frankie asked as he accepted the card.

            She shrugged. “Did you pay ahead or miss a few days of school?”

            “No. I bought the card on Monday and I didn’t have a credit balance then and I’ve used it all week,” Frankie explained.

            She waved over the supervisor. “We seem to have a problem with this student’s card,” she explained to the manager. “He says he bought his card on Monday and has used it every day. The register is rejecting his card because it says he has a credit balance on his account and I get the message that the credit must be used first.”

            “Hmm,” the manager said with a frown. She moved to the machine and tapped in her password and began clicking through the menu screens. “Okay, I see it now,” she looked over the top of her half-moon glasses and smiled at Frankie. “Is it your birthday?”

            Frankie shook his head ‘no’. “My birthday is in January.”

            “Well, I don’t know what the occasion is, but someone put money on your account…,” she looked down at her watch and then back up to the screen, “about ten minutes ago.”

            “Can you tell me who it was?” Frankie asked.

            The manager nodded. “The student’s number is listed.” She clicked on it and watched the screen. “Okay, it was Zach Rance who put the money in your account.”

            Frankie felt his heart sink, “Really, there must be some mistake. I hardly know the guy. There’s no reason that he would do that. Can I reject the credit?”

            The manager shook her head, “No, but I will put it in the notes that you believe this to be in error. If the other student complains that the money was inadvertently placed in your account instead of his, we will sort it out then. As for today though, enjoy your free lunch!”

            Frankie was aware of the other students in the line behind him so instead of arguing the case any longer, he just nodded and left the line.

            He walked into the lunchroom and scanned the tables looking for his friends. He finally located them and as he was walking to their table, he noticed Zach was standing against the wall, talking to some friends. He was looking at Frankie and when Frankie noticed, Zach blushed and quickly bolted out of one of the exit doors near him.

            Frankie stared at his tray and tried to figure out what Zach was up to. They were not friends. They had never been friends. In fact, if Frankie had to classify them, he would probably list them as enemies.

            Searching back through his earliest memories of school, Zach was always there—knocking Frankie down or spilling things on him—always doing some kind of mischief with Frankie as the target. Frankie ate a bit of his lunch as he thought about it.

            If Zach were really trying to do some kind of amends, Frankie could understand why he paid for Frankie’s lunch. But it was still odd. The incident had happened way back in Kindergarten.

            “You are a million miles away, Frankie!” Paul said, breaking Frankie’s concentration. “Is something wrong?”

            “No, I was just thinking about…uh, Chemistry class. Wondering if there will be a test Friday,” Frankie hurriedly came up with an excuse for his silence.

            Paul stopped in mid-chew. His eyes grew large, “Why would you think that?”

            “Well, Mr. Ross has been giving us pop quizzes every Friday for the last four weeks—starting with the first week of school. We’ve covered the material in two of the chapters…just seems like we might be due for a test.”

            “Ah man, that’s right! I hope not! I haven’t done very well on those quizzes,” Paul admitted.

            “I’ve saved the quizzes and corrected the answers I got wrong. I am using them as a study guide…just in case. Today is only Wednesday. You have plenty of time to do that too.” Frankie suggested.

            Jon-Erik shook his head. “I don’t think he will surprise us with a test, but I do think Frankie’s idea of using the quizzes as study guides is a good one. At least it gives us an idea of what Ross thinks were the important points in each section.”

            “I don’t know why I let you guys talk me into taking this class,” Paul grumbled.

            “It’s the only class we have together,” Frankie stated.

            “AP baby! If you want the credits, you have to do the work,” Jon-Erik said, laughing at the disgusted look on Paul’s face. “We have our Chem books here; we could correct the quizzes now.”

            Paul and Jon-Erik spread out their books and old quiz papers and began to work on them. Frankie watched for a bit but then let his thoughts draw him back to the past.

            He couldn’t think of any other instance that involved lunch so it had to have been the time in Kindergarten. Frankie shook his head. It was so long ago, it was hard to believe that Zach would even remember it.

_Frankie had gone through the food line and had paid for his lunch, when he entered the dining area. He stopped at the doorway and searched for his friends when suddenly he had gotten blindsided with a shove from behind. He lost his balance and dropped his tray on the floor in his attempt to keep from falling. The room became hushed as every eye turned in his direction. The older kids in the room started to clap and laugh. Soon all the kids in the lower grades joined in._

_Frankie stared at the food all over the floor. Frankie had made a mess. People were laughing at him. He was humiliated and certain he would be in trouble for it. He sat down with a plop, pulled his knees up to his chest and lowered his face onto his knees. He cried._

_“Hey! Hey kid! Don’t cry!” Frankie heard the boy’s voice over his sobs. He felt the boy sit down next to him. “It’s okay! I bet lots of people drop their trays,” he said._

_Frankie raised his face from his knees and looked into the boy’s eyes. “Really?”_

_The boy shifted around until his body blocked Frankie’s tear-streaked face from almost everyone’s sightline. “Sure! I bet it happens all the time!” The boy continued, “And it wasn’t my fault, my friends were chasing me. They were going to make me eat cole slaw. I hate cole slaw! And you stopped in the doorway. You shouldn’t do that.”_

_Frankie jumped to his feet and stood glaring down at the boy. He quivered and he clenched his fists as rage engulfed his 3’6”, 40 pound frame. “You? You did this to me? You’re…you’re…” words failed him as he couldn’t think of anything bad enough to call the boy. Suddenly he remembered a shocking insult that he heard once in a movie. “You are a **horrid** little boy!”_

_The boy’s jaw dropped and his eyes widened in surprise. “I am NOT a horrid!” he objected._

_“Yes, you are!” Frankie insisted._

_“Oh my goodness!” Frankie heard a lady say. He turned to see it was one of the ladies who worked in the cafeteria. He knew because she was wearing a full, white apron and had a hairnet covering her head. She was carrying a tray of food. “Such dramatics over a dropped tray! Haven’t you ever heard the saying, ‘It’s no use crying over spilled milk’?”_

_Frankie shook his head ‘no’._

_“Well, it basically means that accidents happen,” she explained, “Here take this tray and find a place at the table. Lunchtime will be over soon so you need to eat quickly.”_

_Frankie took the tray and thanked the lady and hurried over to his friends. He didn’t look back at the boy he had left sitting on the floor._

            Frankie sighed as he put his fork down. He hadn’t met Zach before that day. They were both in Kindergarten but in different classrooms. Frankie soon learned Zach’s name however, as time after time, Frankie seemed to be some kind of target to him.

            He stared down at his plate and remembered the look on Zach’s face when Frankie had called him a horrid little boy. Aside from the obvious shocked look, Zach’s eyes had also filled with tears at the insult.

            Frankie sighed again and scratched a spot behind his ear that had prickled at that memory. He had to acknowledge that he had hurt Zach’s feelings that day. He reasoned that the tray incident was probably just caused by Zach playing with his friends and he hadn’t deliberately set out to crash into Frankie, but when Frankie hurt his feelings, that had to have been when he started seeing Frankie as his enemy.

            Frankie shrugged it off. He wasn’t going to feel bad for Zach. If anything, all the evidence pointed to Frankie being right. His mind ran over the events of the day, starting with the apple Zach had placed on his desk. The apple, the gift certificate, and the free lunch—Zach must be planning something huge. Although Frankie couldn’t imagine anything bigger or worse than what Zach had done to him two weeks ago. He felt his teeth clench at the memory. He got mad at himself for even having one second of remorse about his insult to Zach Rance way back in Kindergarten!

            Paul interrupted his thoughts with a question both he and Jon-Erik had missed on their Chem quiz from the previous week. Frankie dug out his Chem quiz and discussed his answer to the question with them. He was glad for the distraction.

            Later that evening, he was in his bedroom doing his homework when his little sister ran in.

            “There is a guy at the door! Says he has a delivery for you and you have to sign for it. What is it?”

            Frankie put his pencil in the textbook to mark his page, as he stood up. “I have no idea! I didn’t order anything.”

            They hurried to the front door to find a man standing on the steps. The name “Terry” was stitched on his uniform which was also labeled with the name of a local supermarket.

            “Are you,” the man named Terry looked at the tag on the bag, “Frankie Grande?”

            “Yeah, that’s me,” Frankie agreed.

            “I have a delivery for you; I need you to sign for it.” He handed Frankie a clipboard with a form on it.

            Frankie took the clipboard and said, “But I didn’t order anything.”

            Terry shrugged, “I don’t know anything about it. I just do deliveries.”

            Frankie signed the clipboard and handed it back to Terry. Terry handed Frankie a bag and an envelope. “I am also supposed to give you this note…which is odd because we don’t usually receive notes to pass on.”

            Frankie’s mother came to the door and handed Terry some money for a tip, and he took it with a smile. When he turned to leave, she closed the door and turned to Frankie.

            “Well…what’s in it?” she asked with a grin.

            Frankie smiled and then looked into the bag. The smile slid from his face immediately when he saw what was inside. “Apples,” he answered.

            “Apples?” his mother asked with a puzzled look. “Who would send you apples? And more importantly, why?”

            Frankie sighed, “I know who, but I am not sure why. I think it is some kind of practical joke.”

            “Can I have one?” his sister asked, eyeing the bag.

            “No, sorry, but no. I am going to give them back tomorrow to the person who sent them to me.”

            “But…they’re a gift!” his sister argued, “You can’t refuse a gift!”

            Frankie gave her a small smile, “Actually, you can refuse gifts, and I intend to return these.”

            Frankie took the apples and the note with him to his room. He put the bag of apples on his chair and sat down on the bed to read the note.

            “My hands never touched these apples so you know for sure they aren’t poisoned.” It was signed, “Zach”.

            Frankie shook his head as he got up from the bed and put the note in his desk drawer, next to the one he had received with the gift certificate. “This guy is a lunatic,” he mumbled to himself.

            The next morning, shortly before the bell rang, Frankie entered the classroom and walked directly to Zach’s desk. Zach was hurrying to finish his homework so he startled and jerked his head up when Frankie sat the bag of apples down on his open textbook.

            Frankie laid the gift certificate down beside the bag and then placed the money for the two lunches down on top of the gift certificate.

            “I don’t know what you are doing or why…and I don’t care to know. If you are trying to set me up for some huge prank…I think your last one would be hard to top. If it is some kind of amends…all I want from you is for you to leave me alone.” Frankie turned and walked to his desk before Zach could answer.

\----------

            He stopped at his locker before lunch and when he opened his locker door, another tiny envelope dropped at his feet. Frankie bent down and picked it up, mumbling, “You’ve got to be kidding me!” to himself. He opened the envelope and saw there was no note inside this time. There was just a movie pass.

            Frankie felt rage overcome him. He had heard of people seeing red before but he had never experienced it himself. He did then. He shoved the movie pass into his backpack and envisioned himself shoving it down Zach’s throat the next time he saw him.

            He hurried through the lunch line, wincing a bit to use the credit on his lunch account—until he reminded himself that he had paid Zach back the money for it—and then walked to the table where his friends were sitting. He looked toward the exit doors and saw Zach there talking to some guys. Zach had his eyes on Frankie.

            Frankie slammed down his tray, causing his friends to stop talking and turn their attention to him. Frankie didn’t notice because he was glaring at Zach. He decided there was no reason to wait until the next morning to confront Zach, he would do it now. He opened his backpack and retrieved the movie pass. When he got it in his hand, he looked towards the door and found that Zach had already left the cafeteria. Frankie sighed and returned the movie pass to his backpack and then took his seat at the table.

            His friends were looking at him with confusion.

            “Are you okay?” Jon-Erik asked quietly.

            “I’m fine!” Frankie barked as he dug his fork into the spaghetti on his plate.

            “Are you sure?”

            Frankie turned to find his friends silently looking at him. He forced his shoulders and face to relax. “Yeah, sorry. I…have a headache. Didn’t mean to be a grouch.”

            “It’s cool! We’ve all been there. You need to go to the nurse after you eat and ask her for some Tylenol,” Jon-Erik suggested.

            “Yeah, I will,” Frankie said as he turned back to his lunch.

            “My parents aren’t going to be home tonight. You guys want to come over and hang out?” Paul asked. “We could get a pizza and maybe download a movie.”

            “Sounds great! Count me in!” Jon-Erik agreed enthusiastically.

            Frankie’s hand had involuntarily clenched around his fork at the word “movie”. “Yeah, me too,” he mumbled.

            Frankie thought about the movie pass in his backpack and his jaws clenched. There was no note attached, but Frankie knew it had come from Zach. For him to deliberately remind Frankie of that night was mind boggling to Frankie. It had to be a part of some master plan, like a warning of how bad the next attack was going to be.

            “You can drive us there after school, right?” Jon-Erik asked.

            Frankie nodded and got up from the table. “I’m going to the nurse to get something for this headache”, he lied. He just wanted to be alone for a few minutes before his next class.

            He dropped off his tray and was headed for the exit when Lauren ran up to him. “Wait, Frankie!” she called.

            He stopped with a sigh of irritation but quickly squelched it. Lauren was one of his best friends and he wasn’t going to snap at her. He had lied earlier about having a headache, but he reached back and massaged his neck muscles which had begun to tense up. “Hey, Lauren. What’s up?”

            “I need to ask you something…we are playing ‘truth or dare’ and it was my dare. Sorry if this is rude, but I have to ask. You don’t have to answer though,” she said rapidly.

            In spite of how tense he was, he gave a small laugh at how flustered she was. “Okay, just ask me.”

            “Sorry…I just wanted you to understand that I wouldn’t ask you anything like this on my own,” she continued as if she didn’t realize he had agreed to hear her question.

            “Lauren! Just ask!”

            “Okay…um…are you and Zach Rance dating?” she said, and then bit the corner of her lip with a frown.

            “Me…and Zach? NO! Wow, why would you think that?” Frankie asked in shock.

            “Well, we all notice him staring at you all the time….and he did beat up Wade Brandenburg last Tuesday because Wade said something about you that Zach didn’t like…”

            “Wait! What?”

            “You didn’t hear about it? They both got kicked out of school for five days. They just came back yesterday,” she explained.

            “No. Nobody said anything! What did Wade say about me?”

            “No idea. Do you know Janie Porter,” she turned and motioned to a girl sitting at the table where she had been sitting.

            Frankie shook his head ‘no’.

            “Well, she has a twin brother, Jimmy Porter…”

            “I know Jimmy. We had a class together last year,” Frankie interrupted.

            “He was in the gym class when it happened. He won’t tell anyone anything. Not even the names of who all were there and witnessed it. But he did tell Janie that the fight was about you, and that Zach was the one who started it when he went after Wade. Wait here a minute.” She hurried back to the table and discussed something with her friends. The one she had pointed out to Frankie wrote something on a paper and handed it to Lauren. Lauren ran back to Frankie.

            “Here is Jimmy’s phone number. He won’t tell us anything but he might tell you,” she said, offering Frankie the slip of paper.

            Frankie shook his head, “No thanks. I’m not interested in hearing anything about it.”

            Lauren folded the paper up and slid it into Frankie’s shirt pocket, “Here, just in case you change your mind.”

            She hurried back to her table to rejoin her friends. Frankie went to the nurse and was given two Tylenol. He headed to his next class and arrived long before anyone else. He decided to put everything out of his mind and focus on his classes.

\----------

            As he was walking to his car at the end of the day, he stopped short when he noticed something propped up on his windshield. He hurried over to his car and picked it up. He saw that it was a CD in a cheap, paper folder. He looked around quickly and didn’t see anyone nearby that he thought could have left it there.

            He unlocked his car door and got in, tossing his backpack in the back seat. He studied the folder of the CD. There was no writing on it and no note tucked inside. He slid out the CD and saw that there was no writing on it either—very obviously not a professionally recorded CD.

            Suddenly all his car doors, except for the driver’s door, were flung open and his friends piled into the car. They were in the middle of an enthusiastic discussion over what movie they were going to watch with a sub-discussion over whether pineapple belonged on pizza.

            Frankie had forgotten that he had agreed to drive his friends to Paul’s house. He hurriedly returned the CD into its folder and slipped it down into the area between his seat and the center console, hoping no one would see. Jon-Erik was in the passenger seat and he noticed.

            “What’s that?” he asked in a low tone to keep the three guys in the back seat from hearing.

            “Nothing important,” Frankie answered, and then started the car.

            He drove them all over to Paul’s house but didn’t turn off the car. “Sorry guys, I can’t hang out right now,” he said. “I’ll try to come back in a bit.”

            “Still have that headache?” asked Jon-Erik, searching Frankie’s face carefully.

            “Yeah,” Frankie lied. “I think I just need to go home and lay down for a little while.”

            “Feel better, Frankie!” Paul said as he scrambled out of the backseat.

            “Here’s your backpack. I think I might have stepped on it,” Chadd said apologetically as he passed it up to Frankie in the front seat.

            “It’s okay. There’s nothing breakable in it,” Frankie assured him as he took it and brushed the shoe mark off it.

            “I hope you're well enough to join us before we order the pizza,” Dominic said as he got out of the car, “We need you to be the tie-breaker on the pineapple on the pizza debate!”

            He watched his friends go into Paul’s house before he put the car into gear. He reached down the side of his seat and withdrew the CD and laid it on his console. He stared at it a moment, lost in thought. If it had been one of his friends who had put it on his windshield, they would have said something about it when they were in the car. And it couldn’t be Lauren or she would have said something when he saw her at lunch. No. He knew it was from Zach. He had known ever since he saw it on his car. He sighed and pulled away from the curb.

            During the drive home, Frankie debated with himself on whether he should even bother listening to it. At one point, he lowered his window and grabbed it from the console. He fully intended to pitch it out the window and be done with it. But he stopped himself at the last moment. He mentally assured himself that it was just because he didn’t want to litter; he wasn’t the least bit interested in hearing what was on the CD.

            He arrived home and was glad to find that no one else was there. He went directly to his room and grabbed his laptop from his desk and powered it on. He dropped his backpack on the floor, kicked his shoes off, and climbed onto the bed. He sat, with his legs criss-crossed, with his laptop in front of him, waiting for it to finish booting up.

            He took the CD out of its folder and stared at it for a second. He sighed in resignation and slid it into the CD player and braced himself for…he wasn’t sure what.

            A song began to play and Frankie immediately knew what it was. He was a huge Justin Bieber fan. It was Bieber’s song, “ _Sorry_ ”.

            Frankie frowned in concentration. He began to doubt if the CD was from Zach. But if not Zach, who could it be? He puzzled on it until the song ended. There was a slight pause and then “ _Sorry_ ” began to play again. Frankie listened to it all the way to the end. The third time the song began to play, Frankie laughed and stopped it.

            He couldn’t believe that someone would make a CD with the same song repeated over and over. He shook his head. Not ‘someone’, he corrected himself, he knew who it made it for him. But he couldn’t understand why Zach would do it. He opened the menu and was surprised to find that the songs on the list were not named. They all said “Untitled”. He scrolled the list and saw that they all had the same running time, except for one song, the fifth one from the bottom. He clicked on that one to listen to.

            It wasn’t “ _Sorry_ ”. It wasn’t even a Justin Bieber song. But Frankie did know the song, although it had been popular years ago. He listened to it all the way through and when the next song began to play, it was “ _Sorry_ ”. Frankie started from the top of the list and clicked each song in turn, listening to it for a few seconds before clicking on the next song. They were all “ _Sorry_ ”, except the one with the ever-so-slightly longer running time—the fifth song from the bottom.

            He clicked it and listened to it again as he leaned his back against his pillows braced against the headboard. He pondered over its inclusion on the CD. He didn’t know if it had been put on it by accident or if not, why it was on there. If Zach wanted him to hear it, he wouldn’t have hidden it. It didn’t make any sense. Unless….but no, Frankie shook his head at the thought. The persistent thought wouldn’t be shaken away however. Frankie sighed and let it come forward in his mind. What if it was what Zach really wanted to say; the real message to the CD? That maybe even if Frankie never found it, he still had to say it?

            Frankie laughed at himself for the thought, but his laugh didn’t sound real to his ears. He bit his bottom lip as he thought about it. The only way he would know is if he found out what that fight between Zach and Wade was about. He leaned over and grabbed his backpack up off the floor and brought it to his bed. He searched through it to find the slip of paper with Jimmy Porter’s phone number that Lauren had given him. After a few minutes, he realized it wasn’t there. He took out his textbooks and shook them to see if somehow the slip of paper had gotten wedged between the pages, but nothing fell out. He flipped through his notebook and it wasn’t there either. He pulled out his wallet and searched it and then his pants pockets. The slip of paper was nowhere to be found.

            He didn’t think he had thrown it away. At least, he didn’t remember doing it. He mentally retraced his steps from the cafeteria, to the nurse, and then on to his class. He shook his head. He felt certain that he hadn’t thrown it away after she insisted he take it. He frowned at the thought. Except…he didn’t take it. He remembered that she had folded it and put it in his…he reached over to his chest and patted the pocket there. He heard the faint crinkling sound of paper. He smiled as he reached in and pulled it out. He opened the paper and reached for his phone. Jimmy answered on the second ring.

            “Hi Jimmy! Uh…It’s Frankie Grande. Lauren gave me your number…”

            “Hi Frankie. Yeah, she told me she did. To tell you the truth, I was kind of hoping you wouldn’t call. No…I don’t mean that the way it sounds. It’s just…I’m friends with both Zach and Wade, and I really don’t want to be in the middle of this.” Jimmy rushed and stumbled through the words, obviously very uncomfortable.

            Frankie sighed, “Sure, I understand. I probably wouldn’t either. Sorry for bothering you.”

            “Wait! Don’t hang up! Look…since it was about you, I’ll tell you. Just keep my name out of it, okay?”

            “I swear! I’ll never tell a soul it was you!”

            “Okay…well, it was after our gym class last Tuesday. Zach had missed school on Monday and he was in a foul mood all day Tuesday. I have a couple of classes with him and he wasn’t himself at all. I had thought maybe he still wasn’t feeling well or something. Anyway, after gym we were all in the locker room, and Wade was standing across the room with his friends…”

            Frankie kept quiet and listened intently as Jimmy told the story. When Jimmy reached the end, Frankie thanked him, and swore again that he would never tell that Jimmy was the one who told him, and he hung up.

            Frankie called Paul and when he answered, Frankie asked Paul to put him on speakerphone.

            “Hey guys! Sorry, I won’t be able to make it. I thought I could but…” he started.

            “Your head still hurting?” Jon-Erik asked.

            “Who is going to settle the pineapple on pizza debate?” Dominic asked.

            “Simple solution…order it half with pineapple, half without. No debating necessary!” Frankie answered with a laugh, choosing to ignore Jon-Erik’s question. He didn’t want to lie.

            “I guess a compromise is best…except I hope none of that nasty stuff runs over to the good side of the pizza,” Chadd said with a laugh.

            “Okay,” Paul said, “Since you helped us solve that problem, how about helping us decide what movie to watch?”

            Frankie laughed, “You’ll have to decide that one for yourselves! I’ll talk to you later! Bye!”

            They all yelled goodbye to Frankie and he smiled as he hung up the phone. He looked back at the open menu of the CD still inside his laptop. He clicked the one song on it that didn’t seem to belong and listened to it again.

            When it ended, he stopped the CD and removed it from his laptop. He replaced the CD in its folder and then put it in his desk drawer that held Zach’s notes. He grabbed his wallet from the bed and tucked it back in his pocket and pulled his shoes back on. He picked up his car keys and headed for the door.

\----------

            Frankie arrived at school extra early the next morning. He made a quick trip to his locker to pick up the books he would need for his early classes and then lurked around a different hallway. He didn’t have to wait very long before he spotted Zach arriving at his locker. Zach was busy gathering his books when Frankie walked up beside him.

            “So…what’s this I hear about you and Wade Brandenburg fighting last Tuesday?” Frankie asked.

            Zach startled so hard that he jerked his head up and whacked it on the upper shelf of his locker. He rubbed it while glaring at Frankie. “You scared the shit out of me! How about making some kind of noise when you approach next time?”

            “I asked you a question,” Frankie reminded him.

            “Yeah, I heard you. Why? Did Wade tell you about it?” Zach asked angrily.

            “It doesn’t matter who told me. I would like to hear your side of it,” Frankie answered.

            All traces of anger left Zach’s face as he met Frankie’s eyes. He sighed and looked at the floor, “It was stupid. It was after gym class and he was talking to his friends. He was talking about…well,” Zach paused and shook his head. “He was talking about you—how hot you are, how he wanted to date you—you know…that kind of stuff.”

            “And?” Frankie prompted.

            Zach looked up and his cheeks were red. Frankie could tell that it wasn’t from embarrassment, it was from anger resurfacing. “And,” Zach said, “I got pissed and told him you were too good for him. I told him that you could be blindfolded and put into a dark room filled with guys and you could grab one and he would be a better guy than a mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging Neanderthal like him!”

            “Oh. I heard it was ‘troglodyte’ not ‘Neanderthal’,” Frankie said.

            “I don’t know! Troglodyte, Neanderthal, doesn’t matter! I meant a prehistoric cave-dweller!” Zach sputtered, angrily.

            Frankie bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. “And then what happened?”

            “Then it got ugly,” Zach admitted.

            “Got ugly? Sounds like it already was ugly.”

            Zach shrugged, “Okay, then it got physical. It took a couple of teachers to pull us apart, and we both got a five-day vacation out of it.”

            “What would you do if I told you that Wade is the man of my dreams and I have been hoping that he would ask me out for ages, and now you have ruined my chances with him?” Frankie asked.

            Zach startled, took a step back, and stared at Frankie with his mouth open. Finally he managed to ask, “Wade! You like Wade?!”

            Frankie began to laugh. He laughed so hard he had to bend forward a bit to catch his breath. He shook his head ‘no’. “He asks me out at least once a month!”

            “That wasn’t funny, Frankie! I almost had a heart attack thinking I had ruined your life!” Zach scolded.

            Frankie giggled, “Yeah, it was funny! You should have seen your face!”

            Zach grinned and shook his head. He reached into his locker to get one of his textbooks. Frankie followed his motion and noticed the bag of apples was on the floor of Zach’s locker. Frankie gestured to them, “Zach, what are you doing? Why?”

            Zach sighed and leaned his head against the locker door, looking down at his feet. “Oh God, Frankie…that night at the movies…I just…it was so awful! I couldn’t face you after. I started running right after it happened and I didn’t stop until I got home, inside my room. I stayed in all weekend and faked sick on Monday. I came back to school that Tuesday, but I ditched first period so I wouldn’t see you. Then during my five-day vacation after the fight, I started thinking about all the other times. I made a list of the ones I could remember, and I decided to try to make them up to you.”

            “I agree. It was awful. So…do you always get the 48 oz. soft drink?” Frankie asked. Zach nodded slowly.

            Frankie continued, “That’s six cups of liquid. Except I guess the ice actually decreases the amount of liquid by replacing it with a solid.”

            “Ugh…Frankie...I know!” Zach groaned.

            “And you got the jumbo bucket of popcorn, didn’t you? And by the amount of grease spots, I would guess you ordered it…”

            “…with extra butter,” Zach mumbled.

            “All that ended up in my lap, but what was that thick, gooey, orange paste that I found all over my shoes?” Frankie asked, finding himself enjoying watching Zach squirm.

            “Nacho cheese,” Zach admitted, barely above a whisper.

            “Yeah, that’s what I thought. It smelled like it. So what happened to the chips?”

            Zach shook his head, and answered in a low voice. “I don’t know, I saw them flying through the air, but I didn’t see them land. I think it was on a row below us.”

            “I have to ask, did you do it on purpose, Zach?”

            Zach raised his head away from his locker door and looked Frankie in the eye. “God! No, Frankie! I would never do that on purpose! I saw it in your face that night though. You thought I did.”

            “How did it happen?”

            Zach took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Troy Sullivan and I went there together and we arrived late. He spotted two seats together and we started in that direction. I was trying hard not to step on anybody while I was working my way down the row, so I was looking down, not ahead. Troy stopped and was talking to some friends in the row behind. When I got near the seats, I realized that they were right next to you. I knew you wouldn’t want me sitting by you, so I stopped. I was going to wait and let Troy go first. Apparently, he didn’t realize I had stopped and he ran up to me and crashed into my back. I tripped over someone’s feet, and I went down—and, well…you know…everything in my hands landed on you. You jumped up after that and glared at me. I knew I was still ‘a horrid’ in your opinion. I panicked and ran off.”

            “‘A horrid,’” Frankie said softly. “I wondered if that was what you were thinking when you paid for my lunches.”

            Zach nodded, “You know, I didn’t know what that word meant at the time. I had heard the word ‘whore’ and I knew it was a bad word, and ‘horrid’ sounds very much like it.”

            “I didn’t know what it meant either. I had heard it in a movie once,” Frankie admitted.

            Zach gave a small smile at that. “I asked my dad about it that night. I told him the story of how I had knocked you down and what you said. He explained that it meant ‘very bad’. After that, I always tried to change your mind about me, and I always seemed to mess things up. Like,” he paused and pointed to the apples, “When you were bobbing for apples. I was standing next to you and I could see you had one. I was jumping up and down and cheering for you—and I lost my balance and crashed into you. And the time I tried to invite you to play ball with me, and I ripped your book…the list goes on and on…but I never did any of those things to be mean to you. I swear it!”

            “The movie pass and the CD yesterday, those were from you, too, right?” Frankie asked.

            Zach looked away, “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

            “There were no notes but I had assumed they were from you. I guess I am just wasting my time here then,” Frankie turned and started to walk away.

            “Wait! Okay, yeah, they were from me—but you said all you wanted was for me to leave you alone, so I didn’t want you to know they were.”

            Frankie walked back to Zach’s locker. “No more lies,” he warned. “When I saw that movie pass in my locker, I will admit, I was furious. I thought you were having a laugh about it.”

            “No! Not at all! I figured you probably missed the movie that night…”

            “Obviously,” Frankie interjected. “I couldn't very well sit there like that.”

            Zach frowned and bit his lip. “Did you go back and see it later?”

            Frankie shook his head, “No. I told my friends to stay and watch it that night and I went home. Did you go back and watch it?”

            “No. I couldn’t. Felt too guilty. Anyway, tonight is the last showing of it before they switch it out. I gave you the movie pass so you could see it before it was gone, or you could use it to see another one, whatever you wanted.”

            Frankie looked back in Zach’s locker at the bag of apples. “You know, you’ve gone overboard on all of this. When I dropped my tray, the school gave me a free lunch, so there was no need to pay for two lunches now. I don’t even remember losing the apple. As for the rip in the book, it was a used book that I bought for like fifty cents. It was only a small tear on a page. No reason for a $10.00 gift certificate to replace it. And the CD…I love Bieber as much as anyone does, but an entire CD of ‘ _Sorry_ ’?”

            Zach’s face turned red and he giggled, “It was the only way I knew to prove to you how sorry I really am for everything. He says it better than I ever could!”

            Frankie smiled and gave him a small nod, “You’ve convinced me—you are not ‘a horrid’.”

            Zach visibly relaxed and he took a deep cleansing breath. “Really?”

            Frankie nodded, “Yes, really. Not an oaf either. I seem to remember calling you that when you grabbed my book in 6th grade.”

            Zach laughed, “Good, I am so relieved. Now, tell me what store you like to buy clothes from. I want to replace those that I ruined.”

            “No, not necessary. I used a little bit of stain remover on the clothes and a scrub brush on the shoes, all good as new,” Frankie demurred.

            “Come on, Frankie! You have to let me do something to make up for that night!” Zach insisted.

            “No, like I said, it’s not necessary to buy me anything,” Frankie said and then reached into his front pants pocket and pulled out a movie pass. He extended it to Zach, who jumped back from it as if it were a venomous snake.

            “No! I won’t take that! Buying you that was the very least thing I could do…you have to keep it!”

            “You didn’t buy it,” Frankie said with a smirk.

            “What do you mean? Of course I did! I didn’t steal it, if that’s what you mean!”

            “No, I wasn’t accusing you of stealing, I was telling you that you didn’t buy this one,” Frankie reached into his other pants pocket and withdrew another movie pass, “You bought this one.”

            Zach frowned, “I don’t get it.”

            Frankie laughed, “You bought me one, and last night I went out and bought you one. I figured you probably hadn’t seen the movie either, and since all of our friends have already seen it, we should go together tonight.”

            “Tonight? Me and you?” Zach asked in a shocked voice as he reached over to gently remove the pass from Frankie’s hand. He stared at it in confusion.

            "Yep, me and you,” Frankie agreed.

            “Uh…sure!”

            “I have three rules…”

            “Okay! Whatever, I agree,” Zach said with a huge grin.

            “Not so fast! Listen to them first! Rule number one—we get there early so we don’t have to walk down the row in the dark.”

            “That’s fine, sure, I agree!”

            “Rule number two,” Frankie continued, “Since apparently you insist on doing your monthly grocery shopping at the concession stand, you let me help you carry some of it to your seat.”

            Zach giggled, “Agree!”

            Frankie nodded, “And the last rule, you have to go down the row first. That way if you do have a disaster, I will be spared the fallout.”

            Zach threw his head back and laughed, “Good plan!”

            Frankie glanced at the hall clock. “We need to hurry! The bell is about to ring!”

            Zach slammed shut his locker door and the two of them set off at a trot towards their first period classroom. When they neared the door, Frankie grabbed Zach’s arm.

            “Wait a minute,” he said, coming to a stop. “I have to ask you something. Do you like Uncle Kracker?”

            Zach blinked in surprise and his face began to grow red, “Who? What are you asking me?”

            Frankie grinned, tilted his head, and raised an eyebrow. “After about the third or fourth time of hearing ‘ _Sorry_ ’, I checked the CD’s menu. One song, near the bottom of the list was a few seconds longer than the rest of the songs on it. It was by Uncle Kracker, so I just wondered if it was an accident or a message.”

            “What? What kind of message? I have no idea what you are talking about!” Zach answered adamantly, but he looked away from Frankie when he said it, and Frankie could see that Zach’s ear nearest Frankie was turning as red as his face.

            “Do I make you ‘ _Smile_ ’, Zach?” Frankie asked teasingly.

            The bell rang so Zach rushed into the room and quickly sat down in his seat. Frankie could see that the teacher’s desk had a few students surrounding it, asking questions, so he knew the teacher hadn’t noticed them arriving with the bell. Frankie took his seat and opened his backpack. He removed the supplies he would need for class. He smiled privately to himself. Zach hadn’t answered his question, but it was alright. Frankie knew the answer. That song on the CD had been no accident.

            He felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to it. The student who sat in the desk behind him, Scott Haspen, handed Frankie a note. Frankie looked at it and saw his name in Zach’s handwriting. He turned back around in his seat and tossed a glance toward the teacher’s desk and saw the same students were there, still blocking the teacher’s view of the room.

            He opened the note and saw one word, written so large it took up most of the paper. It was “YES”. At the bottom of the page was a drawing of a smiley face. Frankie smiled and carefully folded the note and placed it in his backpack to keep it safe until he could put it in his ‘Zach notes’ drawer in his desk at home. Then he turned in his seat and smiled back at Zach.

 


End file.
